Treasure Hunt Club

Yamashita treasures are hoards of war loots that are confiscated by the JIA (Japanese Imperial Army) during the Second World War. But at the time of their near defeat, they had cleverly hidden them away in different countries especially in the South East Asian continents.

Recovering a certain hidden Yamashita treasure can be quite challenging where it involves interpreting signs, a lot of digging work, and huge financial costs.

When it comes to financial costs, it really does play a huge factor in recovering a certain treasure deposit especially when the excavation involves a lot of work. The good thing is that, the JIA were too kind enough to hide some give-aways.

Give-aways are also considered hidden treasures but only in small amount or quantity. Some treasure hunters called it, “bonus”.

The best part about give-aways is that they are easier to uncover as compared to the main deposit.

So if you happen to recover the give-away, you can use it to help sustain the financial cost of your project.

Now, let’s cover the Yamashita treasure signs indicating the presence of hidden give-aways. There are actually plenty of them but we will only discuss the most common once.

There can be Multiple Treasure Give-Aways

Another good thing about treasure give-aways by the JIA is that, there can be multiple deposits that they had hidden around the main site.

In my own experience, we usually recover one to three gold bar deposits as give-aways.

Some give-aways will come in other forms of precious objects such as old coins, jewelries or diamonds, and antiques.

How do you know that there are multiple give-away deposits on the site?

The JIA do rarely use treasure signs that specifically identifies give-aways. Thus, they simply often use them as a marker indicating that the site is positive with treasure deposit.

As long as you are able to interpret the signs and follow them towards the right directions, you should be able to recover every multiple treasure give-aways that are hidden. This is the reason why it is always best to give a try digging a certain spot with a sign indicating about the hidden item.

Don’t worry because most give-aways are too easy to recover. If buried on the ground, they are buried at shallow depths. Base on my experience, you can uncover them at an average depth of only 3 feet.

Some give-aways are hidden out the surface. You can easily find them inside holes of old trees and rocks. One of the easiest give-away that we recovered was a box container filled with old coins and colorful gem stones. It was simply inserted into the crevice of one huge rock.  

Purpose and Meaning of Give-Away Treasures

You might be wondering why the JIA had to place some give-aways around the site where they had hidden their treasures. There is actually a purpose and at some point, a meaning.

As stated above, the only meaning of a recovered treasure give-away is an indication that the area is positive. But other than that, it actually gives you an idea or sample about what particular type of objects are hidden by the JIA on the site.

When it comes to purpose, you may not expect it that the JIA do intentionally placed give-aways to serve as a decoy especially for amateur treasure hunters. What most amateurs do when they found the give-away, they think of it as the main deposit. As a result, they end up leaving the site with the main deposit left behind unrecovered.

Interpreting a Give-Away Treasure Sign

A give-away treasure sign is always accompanied by some other signs around. In most cases, they are combined or placed in one group such as being engraved on a surface of an old rock.

To me, the more signs around the better. It’s because more signs can tell more specific details about your target including the give-away.

If it happens that you only found a single sign pertaining to a hidden give-away, it does not really give you any idea about the exact spot on where to search for it.

Your best bet is to dig the spot under the sign where you found it, or break or cut the object into pieces where the sign is engraved. However, there is still no guarantee that the give-away is hidden inside.

Another way to handle it is to use a metal detector provided that the give-away has metallic properties. Metal detectors can detect gold bars, coins, and any metallic containers of the give-away. But if the container is made out of ceramic material and it contains pure gems or jewelries, then you will most likely miss it with your metal detector.

Now, when it comes to interpreting give-away treasure signs, the JIA mostly used the same signs as the main deposit. As stated above, they rarely used signs that specifically pertain to a give-away. Again, the reason is probably to trick any unauthorized individuals particularly amateur treasure hunters from recovering the main treasure.

What to do next when you recovered a Give-Away Treasure

One of the best things about recovering a give-away Yamashita treasure is that, they do not have dangerous traps. Thus, if it happens that you uncovered a certain treasure deposit without any traps then it probably means that the item is not yet the main deposit.

You have to know that give-away treasure can also be composed of small deposit such as a box of gold bars. Due to this reason, it is common for them to be misinterpreted as the main deposit especially by amateur treasure hunters.

Assuming that you have recovered the give-away treasure on your site, you may choose to sell them so that you can continuously fund your excavation.